Beta Blog

Halo: Reach


I’ve intentionally waited a few days to write this so my reactions weren’t just giddy excitement and a biased opinion. If you slap the name “Halo” on something you’re going to get my attention.

Halo: Reach as most of you know will be Bungie’s last Halo game, and they have described their efforts as “Going out with a bang”. After Halo 3 was made, Bungie split from their looming Microsoft parent company, however Microsoft retained the rights to Halo. Microsoft has every intention of keeping Halo going, however Bungie will be out of the picture. Halo being Bungie’s creation and by far their most well known work, there is a certain “end of an era” feeling with the entire situation.

Reach takes place before Halo: Combat Evolved (the first Halo game, and launch title of the original Xbox), the details of the storyline and events of the game are still coming through, but one can assume it will be at least loosely based on the novel “The fall of Reach”, a Halo based novel written by Eric Nylund. In short, Reach is a human colony and a primary military network for the UNSC (United Nation Space Command) which houses a large military presence and over 700 million civilians. Through the events in the book Reach is attacked by the Covenant (alien military at war with humanity) and the planet is “glassed”, where the Covenant uses a form of fusion to heat the planet’s crust so intensely it turns to glass, thus killing every living thing on the planet.

So, if you own a copy of Halo: ODST or are lucky enough to get an invite code, as of May 3rd, 2010 you now have access to the Halo: Reach Beta. For those of you who don’t know, a “Beta” is a small portion of a program that is released during development for evaluation from the target audience. A beta can accomplish a couple things, in this case it gives excited fans a sneak peak, it gives the developers a ton of feedback and “free” game testers, which developers usually have to pay. The Reach beta is a small part of what will be the multiplayer for Halo: Reach. It includes a few game types and a small selection of weapons. Some new, some classics (the infamous “Halo 1 pistol” as well). One of the new features to the Halo franchise are “loadouts”, at the beginning of a multiplayer match you can select (currently) one of four loadouts, in the loadouts are weapon selections and an armor ability. These abilities can be activated at any time during the match for a limited time, the beta currently offers active camouflage (invisibility essentially), sprinting, temporary invincibility, and a jetpack. (Current favorite; jetpack).

They have changed some things, damage, added a health bar (where have those been, anyway?), added “assassinations” (instead of a simple melee attack from behind killing a player, you can hold melee to perform an assassination where your Spartan will do a quick deadly killing move) .

All in all it’s still Halo multiplayer, the new twists are fun, and I guess if it’s not broken don’t fix it. I look forward to seeing the rest of the game.

The Welcoming

Welcome everyone, to my gaming blog. I'd like to open with a brief history behind the man.

My life in the gaming world began in 1992 (when I was 6 years old)with Wolfenstein 3D. This being the game that essentially created the game genre we now know as the 'first person shooter' (or FPS). My father (a true "Original Gamer") taught me how to play, I would sit next to him and be in charge of reminding him to save before a "boss fight" (this is before the days of the "checkpoint"). So what began as spending time with Dad and genuine fascination, twenty years later turned into one of my most defining elements. As the years progressed, I generally followed Id software through Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake 2 and other classics such as 3D Realms' Duke Nukem 3D (not the side scrollers. Side scrollers and shooting do not mix) and many more.

As the years progressed, Sony released the PlayStation and my switch from PC gamer to console gamer began. Then, like now I believed the future of gaming rests with the console. It was at that time, however that I began to play very little in the way of shooters. I would play Gran Turismo or any number of "Action" games. We then went from the PlayStation to the legendary PS2. Again my game genres were mainly racing Sims and action games. Nothing very notable until the Microsoft Xbox and the release of Halo: Combat Evolved that plunged me back into the world of first person shooters, but this time it was for good. Halo reminded me of all the reasons I loved hardcore shooters, and on top if it all, defined multiplayer shooters for the console. (some say, however it was Perfect Dark or Goldeneye on the N64. I believe they are to thank for split screen multiplayer, however Halo: CE defined the multiplayer experience) Once Halo 2 was released and online shooters were perfected, it was all fun and games from there. The Xbox 360 was released, followed by Halo 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the Battlefield games and so on. It wasn't all shooters all the time, other staples such as Grand Theft Auto, Portal, Arkham Asylum (Batman fanboy as well) and others.

Today, I primarily game on my Xbox 360, and currently still obsessing over Modern Warfare 2. It seems my pattern is to play games as they come out (or get cheap enough for my broke ass to buy) and play them until my friends get online, then whatever is in the disc drive gets tossed out and in goes the most current game from our favorite series' (CoD, Halo, Battlefield etc.). Currently being played in the background from Modern Warfare 2 is Prototype, which has been a fun mixture of GTA and crackdown.

In the future I hope to link my readers to current gaming news articles with my own thoughts on the subject matter, address pros and cons in the gaming world, review games and equipment as well as add perspective to the genre as a whole.

Thank you for reading and I will post soon

-Goosie